From the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:
If you pick up Acuity’s annual financial report and start laughing at it, executives at the Sheboygan insurance company won’t be offended.
Actually, a good laugh is what they were shooting for this year.
On every left-hand page of the report are humorous cartoons that have appeared in the New Yorker magazine. Included is one in which two scientists are staring at a chalkboard full of complicated mathematical equations. One of the scientists remarks, “Oh, if only it were so simple.”[...]
DuFour said he considers the Acuity annual report, for which Salzmann and Acuity’s sales and communications vice president Wally Waldhart provide the initial ideas, “a coffee table book.”
“You don’t want to throw it away,” DuFour said.
That is not the case with many corporate annual reports. Every year, usually in the spring, companies crank out annual reports that are brimming with numbers and detailed explanations. The covers often scream “corporate” and “boring.”
That’s a missed opportunity, because in an era when regulatory documents about public companies are available over the Internet, the annual report has become more of a marketing tool than it used to be, said Greg Samata, founding partner of the suburban Chicago marketing firm SamataMason Inc. That’s especially true for small companies that don’t have great name recognition, he said.
Other themes they’ve used, according to the article include a report card theme, school yearbook theme, and a Norman Rockwell theme.
Now I want to go find copies to check them out. They sound kinda cool.